MAMMALS. 
75 
Order CARNIVORA. 
Sub-order FISSIPEDIA. 
Family FELID-ffi.' 
21. Felis catus, X. Wild-Cat. 
Becoming extremely rare in Assynt during the last decade, 
but it is still not uncommon in the Eeay Forest, where it 
is preserved by the Duke of Westminster. One very large 
one was killed in Assynt in 1881. Between March 1831 
and March 1834, as recorded by Selby, 901 wild-cats, 
martens, and foumarts were destroyed. According to a 
list of vermin killed on Dunrobin grounds, house-cats and 
wild-cats are distinguished, and six is the number of the 
latter killed between 1873 and 1880. One keeper in Assynt 
killed no less than twenty-six wild-cats between 1869 
and 1880, but of these only three during the last six years. 
Another keeper killed ten between 1870 and 1873, but no 
more until the winter of 1879-80, when he killed four, one 
of which is described as a monster. These notes very 
clearly indicate the process of extermination, and we have 
many other lists which show the same decline. In the 
east of the county, though not yet extinct, it is also very 
rare, though we hear of one being caught occasionally ; and 
it is still found, though rarely, in the Tongue district. 
In Caithness the wild-cat is recorded as occasionally seen 
at the date of the New Statistical Account (1845). Mr. 
Eeid says, it is rare or quite absent now from the 
level portions, but may linger near the Sutherland march 
in Berriedale and Strathmore. " The only undoubted case of 
its occurrence in the parish of Wick was that of a genuine 
wild-cat having been got at a small house at Stirkoke, a 
few miles from Wick. Sergeant Sandison, birdstulFer, saw 
the specimen — the skin nailed upon a door to dry. The 
gamekeeper who had shot it and found the young ones, 
